First there was the Second Amendment Preservation Act, a bill floated in a number of conservative statehouses in recent months that would make it a crime for U.S. government officials to enforce federal gun laws within their state boundaries.

Now comes the Fourth Amendment Protection Act.

It’s the name of a ripped-from-the-headlines bill introduced by state lawmakers in California on Monday.

It would ban state agencies and officials from helping the federal government collect electronic data and metadata on Americans without a targeted warrant. And it would prohibit state and local law enforcement authorities from using such data in their investigations and prosecutions.

Lawmakers in Arizona and Oklahoma are drafting similar measures — all of them based on model bill language crafted by the Los Angeles-based Tenth Amendment Center, the same states’ rights advocacy group that also spearheaded the Second Amendment protection lobbying campaign.

In a lively-worded statement, Sen. Ted Lieu, a Democrat from Redondo Beach who sponsored the bill, described it as an “essential” guard against privacy abuses, decrying the National Security Agency’s spy programs as a “direct threat to our liberty and freedom.”

Recordings Led Zeppelin made as they were composing their 1975 double-album Physical Graffiti will be available at auction next month, reports Kory Grow of Rolling Stone.

The Amherst, New Hampshire–based RR Auctions says that many of the songs on the tapes differ structurally from the ones that came out officially. The group re-recorded the guitar and vocal parts on many of the tapes’ songs, some of which lack vocals altogether, and, in some cases, it used only John Bonham’s drums tracks and completely redid the tracks.

The band recorded the songs at the Ronnie Lane’s Mobile Studio, which audio engineer Ron Nevison built in a 26-foot Airstream trailer. The tapes are part of the Ron Nevison collection, which is also auctioning rough mixes of Bad Company’s debut and four songs from Eric Clapton’s 1973 album Eric Clapton’s Rainbow Concert, as well as recordings by the Who, Ozzy Osbourne and Flo and Eddie.

“Having seen the people of all other nations bowed down to the earth under the wars and prodigalities of their rulers, I have cherished their opposites, peace, economy, and riddance of public debt, believing that these were the high road to public as well as private prosperity and happiness.”
– Thomas Jefferson

My most natural reaction to the simply-put question “Why peace?” is puzzlement. My natural response to the question would be “Why peace? Why not?” How could peace possibly be a bad thing? Then I realize how aloof and self-righteous simple questions and answers can sometimes seem. It is best, as is my normal fashion, to treat even seemingly simple questions as serious inquiries into fundamental freedom throughout the United States and the world. I understand we must be able to demonstrate why peace is beneficial to individuals, nations, and civilizations. So, let’s start over: Why peace?

I think the clearest and simplest answer is “Why not; we have tried war, over and over again, we never win, and the problems we war against only get worse. As the old ’60s song goes: all we are saying is, give peace a chance.” Not only that, but history proves that when there is no war, people prosper. There have been economic booms, scientific advancements, and cultural progress after every conflict American has fought, beginning with our War of Independence.

War breeds war. That is all it can do. War does nothing but devour valuable resources and destroy precious lives for the sole purpose of perpetuating itself. As Randolph Bourne wrote, “War is the health of the state.” War is a mechanism used by the ruling elites of the state to coerce and control the people, so it becomes essential that whenever one war is complete, another is instigated elsewhere so that the mechanism keeps running.

On the other hand, peace breeds prosperity. If war is indeed the “health of the state,” then peace can be nothing less than the “health of the people.” Being at peace means valuable natural resources can be preserved and used at home where we need them most. Being at peace means young fathers and mothers can live and enjoy free trade, not only among themselves but with the world, instead of dying capriciously and unnecessarily, for political gain or to line the pockets of those who profit from their sacrifice.

History teaches us that the key elements to prosperity are freedom and peace. You don’t go to war with people you like, or with people you know, or with people with whom you are trading and doing business. Even after our fledgling republic was nearly torn asunder in a civil war that literally pitted brother against brother and nearly destroyed the South, our reunited nation and all its people advanced and prospered after peace was restored.

After both the world wars of the 20th century, there were advances in science, technology, and culture that only ended when the nation again blundered or was bamboozled into war. The post–War War I economic boom saw the increased use of machines and factories for mass production, which made goods faster and cheaper to produce, thus lowering prices so the average American could buy and enjoy them. The Roaring Twenties roared with more than the music and dancing in the burgeoning commercial radio and movie industry. American homes roared with the sound of newfangled, labor-saving devices like electric vacuum cleaners, toasters, washing machines, and refrigerators. Americans not only had more freedom to enjoy the fruits of their labor, but they were also literally set free to travel when the automobile became affordable and part of every American household.

“Until 9/11, police departments had limited authority to gather information on innocent activity, such as what people say in their houses of worship or at political meetings,” the report explains. “Police could only examine this type of First Amendment-protected activity if there was a direct link to a suspected crime. But the attacks of 9/11 led law enforcement to turn this rule on its head.”

Amidst unprecedented focus on overreach at the National Security Agency (NSA), many Americans have come to understand the risk of being spied on by the government in their electronic communications. But the intelligence-sharing hubs coordinated between DHS and state and local police departments around the country, called “fusion centers,” show there is extensive surveillance of Americans’ physical and social activities as well.

On an April Monday in 2010, Patrick Mettes, a fifty-four-year-old television news director being treated for a cancer of the bile ducts, read an article on the front page of the Times that would change his death. His diagnosis had come three years earlier, shortly after his wife, Lisa, noticed that the whites of his eyes had turned yellow. By 2010, the cancer had spread to Patrick’s lungs and he was buckling under the weight of a debilitating chemotherapy regimen and the growing fear that he might not survive. The article, headlined “Hallucinogens Have Doctors Tuning in Again,” mentioned clinical trials at several universities, including N.Y.U., in which psilocybin—the active ingredient in so-called magic mushrooms—was being administered to cancer patients in an effort to relieve their anxiety and “existential distress.” One of the researchers was quoted as saying that, under the influence of the hallucinogen, “individuals transcend their primary identification with their bodies and experience ego-free states . . . and return with a new perspective and profound acceptance.” Patrick had never taken a psychedelic drug, but he immediately wanted to volunteer. Lisa was against the idea. “I didn’t want there to be an easy way out,” she recently told me. “I wanted him to fight.”

Patrick made the call anyway and, after filling out some forms and answering a long list of questions, was accepted into the trial. Since hallucinogens can sometimes bring to the surface latent psychological problems, researchers try to weed out volunteers at high risk by asking questions about drug use and whether there is a family history of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. After the screening, Mettes was assigned to a therapist named Anthony Bossis, a bearded, bearish psychologist in his mid-fifties, with a specialty in palliative care. Bossis is a co-principal investigator for the N.Y.U. trial.

After four meetings with Bossis, Mettes was scheduled for two dosings—one of them an “active” placebo (in this case, a high dose of niacin, which can produce a tingling sensation), and the other a pill containing the psilocybin. Both sessions, Mettes was told, would take place in a room decorated to look more like a living room than like a medical office, with a comfortable couch, landscape paintings on the wall, and, on the shelves, books of art and mythology, along with various aboriginal and spiritual tchotchkes, including a Buddha and a glazed ceramic mushroom. During each session, which would last the better part of a day, Mettes would lie on the couch wearing an eye mask and listening through headphones to a carefully curated playlist—Brian Eno, Philip Glass, Pat Metheny, Ravi Shankar. Bossis and a second therapist would be there throughout, saying little but being available to help should he run into any trouble.

OK GOP AG Scott Pruitt is just another big government conservative fighting against freedom

On his campaign website, Republican Scott Pruitt promises that he “will not relent in the fight against the federal government in stances of clear and unconstitutional overreach.” He claims that as attorney general, he has “created a unit to protect Oklahoma and Oklahomans from federal overreach.” He claims to “champion limited government.” (See Pruitt’s comments here.) http://scottpruitt.com/issues/protecting-ok-from-the-federal-overreach/

Yet despite his claims of being a limited government champion against federal government overreach, this same Scott Pruitt joined Nebraska in a lawsuit against the people of Colorado who repealed state laws against marijuana, banning state law enforcement from imposing federal marijuana laws against the people of Colorado. Pruitt now complains that Colorado lacks the authority to pass laws that conflict with the federal government, thus violating the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.

Pruitt’s action reflects an arrogant OKGOP that misleads the people using popular libertarian themes to advance its political aims and then cynically betrays those principles when the big government conservatives want to impose their authoritarian ways on the rest of the world. Oklahomans should reject this cynical and foolish legal action, funded by Oklahoma taxpayers, which will end in failure.

While neither major political party lives up to their lofty rhetoric, the OKGOP in particular brazenly disregards the principles of freedom for all people. Those looking for limited government in Oklahoma should disregard such rhetoric coming from Republican politicians in Oklahoma. The OKGOP has become a willful enemy of freedom.

Pruitt’s lawsuit demonstrates how detached the OKGOP is from ideals of freedom and federalism. They just want what they want. They’re big government conservatives who know best. Liberty loving people across the nation should view the OKGOP for what it is, a threat to freedom everywhere.